Qualified Children's Social Worker

We are Cafcass - the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service - and we represent children in family court cases in England.

Independently advising the family courts about what is safe for children and in their best interests, we speak up for over 140,0000 children and young people every year ensuring their needs, wishes and feelings are heard. In short, our role is to be their voice.

While we are proud that Ofsted judged us to be 'outstanding' when they inspected us in early 2024, we haven't come this far only to come this far. This outcome has energised us to just keep getting better at what we do for children and families.

If our purpose resonates with you, we are recruiting for the role of Childrens Social Worker, to work alongside like-minded people in a diverse, inclusive and supportive organisation.

Meet the Team

If you would like to know more about what it is like to work for Cafcass in these teams, why not come to one of our recruitment events - details of which can be found on our website.

Sign up to one of our recruitment events to meet the teams.

Join us in making a difference for children and families. As a Family Court Adviser (our professional title for Children's Social Workers), you'll work within our teams' that are involved in cases where families require assistance to agree on the best arrangements for the welfare and safety of the child(ren) involved. When applying, you'll have the opportunity to indicate your preference - so you can specify a preference of the role that best fits your skills and interests.

Children's Social Workers key responsibilities include:

• Conducting assessments and directly engaging with children to understand and represent their views and wishes to the court.
• Using expertise in robust risk assessment and mediation will be essential as you advocate for arrangements that prioritise the best interest of the children.

Who we're looking for

• You must hold a relevant Social Work qualification and be registered with Social Work England
• You'll have experience working with children and families in a qualified social work capacity
• You will have experience in Family Court proceedings

Location

While these roles are contractually based in either our Gray's Inn Road office or Croydon office, we support flexible working which means your proximity to the office doesn't need to be a deciding factor, however, there will be a requirement to travel frequently for this role to meet with children and families and attend court.

We also meet regularly for team meetings and group supervision to help you feel supported in your role, connect with peers and managers and feel supported and a valued member of our team.

We provide an outstanding range of practice aids, resources, equipment, and support, so that individually and collectively, we can be the voice of children and young people when the family court makes critical decisions about their futures.

Benefits

Please Note: The advertised salary reflects our 2024/25 pay award. We are awaiting confirmation of our 2025/26 when salaries will be updated to reflect this.

We also know that to join us you want to be rewarded in a variety of ways, including quality time away from work to spend time with those important to you, support to manage your financial present and future, whilst also being trusted to manage your work/life balance. We have an extensive package of benefits that you can find out more about when you click through, including excellent holidays and a generous Local Government Pension Scheme to name just two things.

We also understand that you will want to work for an organisation that is both passionate and committed to supporting your wellbeing. As you will find out when you visit our vacancy page, the four dedicated, additional days per year when colleagues are encouraged to spend time focusing on their health and wellbeing is just one of a multitude of ways in which we do this.

Things you need to know

We also know it is important for you to work in a diverse, inclusive organisation that is a safe space for colleagues with shared aspects of identity and lived experience. Given we work with children and families from all backgrounds, we especially welcome applications from people from diverse backgrounds as this helps ensure our workforce reflects the diversity of the children and families we work with and provide a service that reflects their uniqueness.

We are looking to move forward with this recruitment process as quickly as we can and so will review applications and be in touch as soon as we can. However, as a guide, the timetable we are hoping to work to is below.

Closing date for applications:

07 December 2025

Initial interviews completed by:

As and when you apply

Final interviews:

What we've shared with you here is just a small amount of what we think you may like to know. We would also like you to be able to access the job description for this role and more about our benefits and wellbeing offer, which you can find by clicking through to our vacancy page.

We look forward to hearing from you.